Today, thousands of Tea Party types descended on Washington to declare they've been "Taxed Enough Already." A CBS/New York Times poll found that 64 percent of these teabaggers think the administration has raised taxes.
But in fact, tax refunds reached an all-time high this year in part because of the stimulus. Taxes are at their lowest levels in 60 years, according to William Gale, co-director of the Tax Policy Center and director of the Retirement Security Project at the Brookings Institution.
"The relation between what is said in the tax debate and what is true about tax policy is often quite tenuous," Gale said. "The rise of the Tea Party at at time when taxes are literally at their lowest in decades is really hard to understand."
Middle-income Americans are now paying federal taxes at or near historically low levels, according to the latest available data cited by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. That’s true whether it comes to their federal income taxes or their total federal taxes.
A family of four in the exact middle of the income spectrum will pay only 4.6 percent of its income in federal income taxes this year, according to a new analysis by the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center. This is the second-lowest percentage in the past 50 years.
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